Lovin' Etsy

I've been working on 3 little dolls for my Etsy store  http://www.etsy.com/shop/bittypiggies . This included making 6 sleeper because each 1/3 yard makes two sleepers, and why make up half the supplies I have on hand? But as I was knee deep in foot soles, I was really kicking myself. With the three dolls, that's 18 foot soles. sigh. Not my favorite part of any doll or outfit! But now I'm done and on the fingers and toes phase of the last doll.
So, here's why I LOVE Etsy: I logged on to Etsy to list the baby pictured above, and low and behold, I'd sold a doll that has been listed for over a year! What a nice surprise. Some things move super fast, others sit long enough waiting for just the right person and I start to doubt myself.
This little sale came right after a special order (which prompted the three dolls because I always do a small batch of them).
And I did make a profit this year! It was only $120, but it was my first profit in all the years of rubber stamping, sewing etc etc, so I'll take it.

A store stocked up on doll sleepers. Now that is progress!

Reworking it!

The clothes my youngest son had this last go around were really cute. We had a great assortment of t-shirts and I was sort of sad this fall packing them away, knowing that this spring when I pull them out they will probably be too short.
Last night at Old Navy, all my problems were solved.My daughter told me the big thing is sweatshirts and shirts with raggedly sewn lettering. When I looked at what she was talking about, several tumblers in my brain clicked. 1. The ragged fabric is just knit or felt. 2. I can take the decorative part of the t-shirts and sew it to a larger shirt- the knit edge doesn't fray, and the ragged edge being in style means I don't need to disguise it. 3. Plain t-shirts at Walmart are under $5.

Now, this new crafting idea benefits my daughter, too, because we found the CUTEST pizza shirt in the toddler boy section. I'm going to cut one up and sew it for her.

I'm sure my family will laugh at this picture. I told her dad to pick out any old size because I'm going to cut it up. I thought it would be dramatic how small the t-shirt was for her. He picked a 5T. (she's 12 years old) I was going to show the conversion of this shirt, but we don't have an old t-shirt to modify (yeah, right). So, Here is the conversion idea with the large embroidery design:

 I've also decided to do the large machine embroidery design on the back of one of those cut up t-shirts and sew it to another shirt so that the back isn't scratchy :) Anyone else have that problem?

I'm also hoping that by reinforcing the back of the design with stabilizer it won't roll up like they tend to do.

Pretty nifty, huh?